A Galaxy In Ruins
by VokunLoor
Summary: Following the events of the Reaper invasion, the galaxy is in a fragile state. The council wishes to expand out of the galaxy and seek new places to colonize. Not everyone wishes to venture forth, however, and when a squad of soldiers is attacked on a Batarian space station the galaxy will see a war that may leave it in chaos for good.
1. Forward and Introduction

Forward

There are a few things to explain before you begin to read my story. First off, there is little of Halo in this other than the suit and the guy piloting it. Even John has been changed and given a very different back story, I wanted to make it seem like the spartans were the next step for the Alliance in its war against terror in the galaxy. There is also a few technologies borrowed for the universe of Dead Space as well, mainly the RIG and the plasma cutter. If you came here to hopefully see a lot of Halo then you should probably leave now as you won't really find any. As to what else you will find, you will just have to see for yourself. And thank you for taking the time to read my work.  
>Warm Regards,<br>James.

Introduction

Ever since I was little I always wanted to be a soldier, my parents didn't agree with this however. In their eyes I was a genius and my talents would best be served as a scientist helping to create the next great invention. Although I became what my parents wanted, I still had the dream of a soldier's life in my heart, I joined the military as a weapons creator. My job was to build the best weapons with the little resources humanity had at our disposal, easier said then done. For the first few years out of college I devoted my time to researching better ways to conserve ammo on the battlefield so that our troops wouldn't need to worry about it as often. After several explosions and three unfortunate deaths I decided that the current system was flawless and scrapped the research. It was around my fifth year of work that I developed my theory, improving our guns was not the answer to our problems but just maybe the weapon users themselves were.

The human counsel frowned upon my ideas to genetically modify our soldiers, however, they agreed to allow me to self test any and all serum and technology that I came up with. They laughed when they said this, and I knew it was because they did not think I had the aptitude to pull off something that would drastically change the way we waged war. If only they knew just what I would do later that year, then maybe they would have backed my research. Anyways, I began with the most simple basis for a soldier to improve, their strength. If I could find a way to change the genetic structure to promote faster muscle growth and even allow for double the usual strength I would consider that task completed. After that I decided the next thing to improve was the brain, histories best soldiers tended to be those who possessed the intelligence to think a situation through before even getting himself into it. It was only natural that a soldier would be better with a bigger, sexier brain.

The only problem with all of this enhancement was that the slightest mistake and I would be dead, coincidentally this gave me the drive to make it perfect the first time, and as you can no doubt deduce I succeeded. I cannot talk about the serum or how I did it, maybe if the council would pay me a proper amount I would give them the information and even write it down, but as it stands there will be no more mention of my work in that field. When I reviewed my results I was shocked to see that I had surpassed even my most ambitious expectations, after all the pain of my body changing and the extreme hunger my body made me feel to get me to supply it with more energy, I discovered that my strength did not double, it quadrupled. And my brain was more active than it had ever been, I could solve even the hardest of the daily crossword puzzles in the retro news feeds. Fifteen letter word for a Krogan slumber party? ...Fuck, lets move on.

After seeing my success with the serum, I should mention that I grew an extra foot to accommodate the mass that was required for the new muscle size making me well over seven-foot, the council decided that my work had clear potential. They charged me with making a way to keep our troops safe, naturally I went straight into armor research. This proved harder than the gene manipulation, I wanted to make an entire exoskeleton that would go with the changes that I had done to myself. I put only the best metal into the design, a titanium alloy proven to be damn near impervious to weaker weaponry, such as pistols, and able to hold off more weapons for a long enough time to get out-of-the-way. I was pleased to feel the metal was lighter than I had initially thought, then I remembered that I was jacked up on serum (serum being what I began to call the liquid now permanently flowing in my veins) and was even happier because it meant that only people improved with serum, humans at least, could not use the suit I was going to design.

It was not long before the council caught on to what I was planning for the suit, and immediately tried to shut me down. Surprisingly, I was allowed to continue building the suit because the Galactic counsel was eager to see if my design would work. Not because the suit looked good, but because what I had planned would need a neural integration device. It would tap into the brain and help the wearer move the suit based on what pilot intends within one millionth of a second, just slow enough that you feel a little encumbered when using it but not unbearably so. For this "Rig", as I took to calling it, to work, I would have to have multiple implants to give the rig someplace to connect to. Leaving the surgery to the professionals, but not after stupidly trying myself, the rig functioned perfectly and I later added a vital sign monitor to show if the pilot needed medical treatment. I color coded this to help make recognizing it a load easier, simply put, green is good and red is dead, yellow being that you should seek medical attention at your earliest convenience but not a life threatening situation.

On a side note, I made a civilian version of the rig while building the suit and used the credits from the sales to fund the project even further. With the armor crafted and the rig mounted, all I needed to do now was add the electrical components. I made the visor of the helmet act like a computer and included a Heads-Up-Display to make life easier on the pilot. I made the entire interior lining a thick layer of reactive gel that could theoretically help the pilot survive an orbital drop with nothing but the suit to cushion the fall, I was not going to test this theory however. Apart from these two things, the only other enhancements were ammo detectors equipped to the torso area, a utility belt, a grenade strap across the chest, and a personal shield system that was about ten times stronger than your standard military personnel shields. Ok, I literally ripped the shield emitter off of a tank when no one was looking and made it much more compact, they didn't need it.

With all of this, the suit was complete. The gel made wearing it feel like a second layer of skin so I really didn't need to take it off, until I realized I had failed to add a way for the pilot to relieve their bladder. So I added that as a last-minute change. The GC wanted to buy the suit, but they wanted to make sure it really worked first. And that is where our story begins, with me where I am now, just outside of Geth space on a secret mission that I was not allowed to know about. They had me train in every weapon we had aboard the ship, the U.S.S Mozart, which made me a little worried that we were expecting some heavy fire. I can't say I didn't see this coming though, and besides, I always wanted to be a soldier.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"_There was never a hero like The Commander Shepard."-Anderson_

Geth space, even after the treaty between the Quarriens and the robotic people, it was still one of the most dangerous places to travel and we were going right into the middle of it. If I didn't know any better I would think the GC was trying to kill me, it was only the reassurance of the accompanying specter that kept that thought in my head. I had yet to meet the council agent, but I knew he was a Turian. Living on this ship hasn't been that easy, for one I never left my suit which brought up many questions from the crew, but I was also the most ill prepared person onboard. The crew has had at least four or three years of training each, I was the new blood to them and they let me know it. I spent most of my time in my room preparing myself for whatever may happen when we reach the space station, exercising and getting my body use to being under constant use and abuse. The Captain, Swanson was his name, reassured me that if push came to shove my suit would barely be scratched, he said they still shot bullets instead of lasers.

"Attention all hands, this is the Captain speaking, prepare boarding procedures and prepare to disembark with medium firepower." The need for medium firepower told me that the captain was being less than truthful when he said that these people were not advanced apart from their space station. I looked out my window to see a massive structure floating in deep space, until I learn more this place was just in the middle of nowhere to me and had no reason to be here. Being a guest from the council did have its perks, I was given my own room and my food was delivered to my door to allow for privacy. Even in the middle of a potential fire fight I was treated with a moderate amount of respect by the superior officers on board, they helped me get into a squad of four, now five, low ranking soldiers led by Lt. Commander Gunny Daves. I liked Gunny, not because he was one of the few people on the ship who didn't hate me, but because he had an interesting name.

Our squad was the first to step onto the station after the ship had fully docked, I was half expecting to be shot at immediately because of this and was relieved that I was not. The men who intercepted us to take my squad and two others to the location of this super-duper secret mission of super secretiveness seemed to be very curious about why a "Robot" was accompanying them, it took me the entire walk to convince them I was at least intelligent, there was just no explaining to these people that I wasn't entirely metal. One of them tried to go poking around in my helmet to "deactivate any recording software", I kicked him in the cock and left him bleeding in the middle of the walk way. Fuck that guy, I did warn him, in my head at least. After that little episode I started to actually look around the room we were in, it looked like any other space station that the GC had built. Chrome walls and floors with colored lines on the walls to add some detail, the walls were slightly less chromy in this area of the station which I welcomed and decided was a form of middle finger to the council that seemed to say "yeah we fucked with the blueprints, you wanna fucking go?". And go the council did, a few meters down the way there was construction going on where workers were changing the wall to the normal chrome panels, they looked depressed at a quick glance, at a longer glance they grew awkward almost like someone was watching them.

Speaking of someone watching someone, there were more cameras in this section of the station than there were in the rest of the place, combined no doubt. Whatever we were going towards, they wanted to make damn well sure they knew that we were coming. I started to drift into the conversation that Gunny was having with one of our guides, to my surprise they were talking about me. "Why should the robot be coming? He is not, how you say, wanted here."

"I understand your people are edgy around robots but I assure you that he is not one. John is a scien…. He is one of the most intelligent people to ever fight for the council!" I knew he only said that because there was no way they would believe I was a scientist, let alone a human being with skin and all that. The fact that I was still being compared to an artificial being was getting on my nerves. "I assure you gentlemen I am not a robot, how many times must I tell you this? You have tons of cameras here, I am sure you have a biological detector as well to insure that no Geth are coming aboard your ship, that it did not sound an alarm should prove that I am a human." I barked at the Batarian, he was really starting to piss me off now. "Maybe the guy who works the detector is on lunch break." He retorted, if he could see through my visor he would know how much I was staring him down now, actually if he could see through my visor we wouldn't be having this conversation. "That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard."

"But it is one."  
>"You are a right proper dumb ass, you know that?"<p>

"John, if you could please refrain from insulting our guide that would be lovely. Further more if we could just get off the subject of John being a robot or a human that would be fantastic." Gunny jumping in to save the poor Batarian from me kicking his ass, damn you Gunny I wanted to hit him! "Very well, we will accept your companion as a human, but if he makes one step out of line you will die first." And with that the Batarian, whom I named ass face, left us at a door in the middle of a hallway. "What now Gunny?" said the recruit next to me. "Now we wait, it could take a little while which should give me the time to tell you what you need to know to make this all go a load easier."

"I have a quick question Gunny," I said cutting him off before he could speak. "Why did the captain tell me that these guys were using guns that shoot metal bullets and not lasers?"

"Oh, hehe, he tells that to all his new recruits before their first mission. On one hand it helps them with nerves and on the other they think that they are invincible most of the time and end up dead. Now then, let me get to why we are here. The council is trying to branch out of the galaxy as many of you are no doubt aware, and this station has researched interesting and sometimes questionable ways of doing that. Our job is to check the information and report our findings to the council. It's a simple courier job." When it was clear that he was done I started to ask a question that was now eating away at me, "Why not just tell us this when we were on the ship? Surely this can't be that secret if it's just a new engine design of some sort."

"I'm with the robot, why keep this simple matter a secret?" I let the "robot" thing slide, this recruit was attractive and she struck me as the type that you just don't get mad at. "There is clearly more to it than that you fucking idiots," said the not so polite recruit next to the hot one. "The tech must be able to be manipulated into some sort of fucking weapon, and a powerful one at that, one that makes a man go stiffer than corpse."

"That was a beautiful analogy, thank you for that." Said the hot one. "Why don't you go and fuck your robot friend over there and shut up?"

"Now that's just plain rude, you don't need to talk to a girl like that" I said. "Shut the fuck up."

"You really are mean aren't you Joey?"

"I would tell you to fuck off too if I could Gunny but you could actually get me into some real fucking trouble." I leaned close to the girl next to me and said, "Ten credits says his favorite word is fuck."

"I don't take bets I know I can't win, my name is Shelly by the way. Your John right?"

"Yeah, John is me, I mean, I am John. Sorry, not very good with the opposite sex…" she giggled a little. "Trust me, you're doing better than Joey."

"And what are you two talking about that is so important that you can't share it with the rest of us? Setting up a little fuck date? Tell me robot, do you do it with that suit on?"

"First off, no we were not. Second, no matter how much you want to, you wont find out the answer to that question because I am not gay and as you to please stop trying to sleep with me." The others started to laugh at him, I could see the pure hate that was coming from his eyes. "I never come onto you! I aint queer!"

"Well you aren't straight that's for damn sure." Shelly started to giggle again, god I loved that giggle. "You boys need to learn to play nice, Joey, you have to admit you're a little gay."

"Fuck you woman."

"Trying to sleep with me isn't going to prove you're straight.'

"I'm not trying to sleep with any of you!" A coughing that was clearly forced came from the direction of the door, we all looked over to see a Salarian staring at us. "Did I come at a bad time?" he asked looking at Gunny. "Not at all! probably just in time to keep these three from killing each other, let's get down to business." We followed the scientist into the room which was clearly a laboratory, an array of test tubes and multi colored liquids were on almost every table and mist was coming out of a few of them which gave the room that "mad scientist" feel that a lot of the scientist back on earth had gone for. We did not stay in this room longer than to just walk through it into the next, however, and when we did I saw what I was expecting. A giant engine with a literal fuck ton of computers connecting to almost every millimeter of the thing. I didn't understand the first thing about ships or engines but Shelly looked impressed so I did my best to look it too, then I remembered there was a helmet on my head and she couldn't see my face.

The room was hot, or at least my HUD told me the temp. was around 115 degrees. My suit kept me nice and cool, and because I could see that she was sweating just as much as she was impressed, I reversed two of my coolers to help cool her off a bit. When I did that she pulled me closer to her and put her left arm around me, I knew it was to keep cool but it felt amazing none the less. "Hey John, you ever see this many computers in one place before?" She whispered into my helmet, "Only once back on earth, and all of them were for a different experiment, I've never seen a project monitored to the most miniature detail."

"We do our best to check every aspect of the engine, if it burns too hot we want to know why right away, there is no time to lose." Said the Salarian scientist who had clearly overheard me talking to Shelly, "It may look a bit excessive to the "Great John Watcher" but I assure you that these are all necessary to the speed of our research." I cringed at the title as it was blatantly his way of saying that he had heard of me and thought I was too insignificant to matter to him at all. Honestly the only reason I cared was that he was belittling me in front of Shelly, and that shit will not stand, so I sat down a little later making sure to wait a while so as not to look like I was accepting his insult, I was merely tolerating it for now. Plus sitting down made the coolers work a little better, not sure why really but they always seem to kick into high gear when I am seated, Shelly liked the increased cooling a lot, she sat next to me to keep in the cool area.

"Lieutenant Commander Gunny, will you please go with me into the main hub here to check the data in private?" Said the scientist gesturing towards a small alcove made of glass and filled with monitors. "Not at all." said Gunny motioning for us to stay put. I leaned back a bit knowing that this was going to take some time, our not so friendly Salarian struck me as the kind of guy who liked to be thorough. Shelly scooted a little closer to me on the bench and rested her head on my shoulder, even with the cooling fans from my suit she was still sweating buckets. "Are you staying on John or was this a one time mission thing for the council? Cause the captain said he would keep you on if you wanted and I really think you should." That surprised me, I was growing very fond of Shelly but I never dreamed that she would ask me to stay on board the ship. "Do you want me to stay Shelly?" I whispered back, "Yeah, there should be at least one decent person on the ship other than me and Gunny." She replied, as she did she put both her arms around me and closed her eyes, the heat was putting her to sleep. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer to me, I could hear Joey snickering somewhere out of view but I didn't care.

A good half hour of waiting next to a very hot engine later, Gunny finally returned alone and with a pad that no doubt had all the information we were here for on it. "Ok, let's get the hell out of this oven." He said starting for the door, I gently shook Shelly awake and helped her to her feet. "I wasn't out long was I?" She asked me as we were walking back into the room with the test tubes. "Only about thirty minutes."

"That's good, don't want to screw with my sleeping schedule or anything."

"Oh no, you would rather screw John!"

"Shut up Joey and just keep walking ok?" As stupid as Joey was, he knew that messing with me would not end well for him, even if he had much more experience at combat than I did, then again he also did not have a suit built to withstand laser fire which probably deterred him from attacking more than it encouraged him. My thoughts werent with Joey being a douche though, they were with Shelly. I have only known her for about three hours now and I have already managed to picture an entire life with her, I even know what cake I would want for our wedding. One could say that I had fallen madly in love with this girl, they would most likely be correct. She was beautiful though, blue eyes and pure white hair that made you squint if the light was reflecting off it just right, as cute as she was, she was all, one hundred percent woman. Oh the things I would do to her.

We had made our way back to the door that would lead us to the unrestricted sections of the ship and were just about to step through when two Batarians decided to block our path with their weapons drawn. I knew we were about to be shot at so I grabbed my pistol and held it at my side making sure the safety was indeed off. I sent up a silent prayer hoping that this was just making sure we took nothing other than what we were give, but my doubts out shined the hope. "What seems to be the troub-" The fuckers opened fire and I saw Gunny's head explode spraying brain matter all over the hallway, I pushed Shelly out of the fire and took a few hits to the chest but my shield prevented them from making actual contact. I raised my pistol and fired a few shots into the one who killed Gunny, he had no shielding or armor so the blasts ripped through his chest like a knife through paper. Joey took out his own gun and slew the other Batarian before he could fire again. "Alright, unless anyone has any better ideas I say we head back to the ship and get the hell out of here." I said helping Shelly get back to her feet. Joey grabbed what was left of Gunny's dog tags and took a place next to the door. One of the other recruits had been killed as well and I grabbed his tag. Shelly took the other flank of the door and opened it motioning me to go ahead.

We stepped into hell, there was cross fire directly in front of us with our guys on the right, there was an indent in the wall around the door I came out of which gave me cover from incoming attacks. The captain was in the fight and motioned to me to find another way around, instead of trying to read hand signals I called him on my omni tool and brought the call into my helmet. "Alright kid, this is real combat so get ready for some fun! Where the hell is Gunny?"  
>"Gunny is dead sir."<p>

"Damn them, ok, I am putting you in charge for now only cause you will be able to take most of the abuse from any enemies attacking your squad. I want you to take your group and find another way around going back the way you came. Hold a position at the ship with the rest of the crew and we will rendezvous there. Get moving kid!"

"Sir, yes Sir!" I shouted into the mic as I ran back into the hall with my squad closing the door behind me. "Well? Why aren't we out there fighting these fuckers? They killed Gunny damn it!"

"The Captain wants us to find another way around, it's too dangerous to go out there from where we are. He said to get to the ship and help defend, he also put me in charge because I can survive a few shots before I need to take cover."

"I don't give a fuck who is in charge lets just get the hell out of here!"

"Ok, then lets move out." With that we headed off back down the hall at a run, the first turn we came to was on the left hand side and we took cover before running out. A good thing we did because there were at least twenty enemy troops coming down the hall. I put my pistol back into its holster and unhooked the rifle from my back, I then held it out so that the barrel was pointing down the hall and began to fire blindly into the crowed of incoming troops. When my clip was spent I peeked out to see I had downed six, I motioned for Joey to take the corner just across from us so he could get a better shot and had Mark, the other recruit, go with him. "I'm going to go out there and draw their fire, I want you to stay here and pick them off as you see them peer out to shoot." I told Shelly as I finished reloading. She nodded and got her own rifle ready, I stepped out and was surprised that I hadn't been sho-, ok so I spoke too soon because a half second later I was bombarded with five shots from at least two different troops, my shields were down and I dashed to cover in an open door way.

Shelly had taken down one of the Batarians and Joey two more, which left eleven more to deal with. With my shields now back up to full I ran to the next available cover and saw my squad take down five more of the fuckers. There was an enemy in the room I had just ducked into and I dealt with him quickly, I turned and headed back out into the fray. One of the Batarians tried to rush me, he jumped at me trying to push me over but fell back on his ass. I promptly shot him in the dead and dealt with the other four that were hiding in the next room. "That was intense!" Shelly said running up to me, then slamming the back of my helmet with her gun. "Ouch!" not really, "You could have been killed! And you would have left me and Mark with this ass hole!"

"I am standing right here...you fuckers."

"It was the best strategy we had at the time Shelly, we need to get to the ship as fast as possible to help with the defense."

"There wont be any defense if you die dummy!" I could tell she really did care if I got myself killed, maybe the constant hitting me in the head was a sign but I could be wrong. "How about instead of hitting me we get to the ship hu?" I offered, she continued to hit me. "Were right behind you dummy." She said not letting up on the constant hitting of my head. I grabbed the rifle out of her hand and she pulled out her pistol with blinding speed and began to hit me with the butt end of that as well. "Ok, you need to stop hitting me now please."

"Are you going to do that again?"

"Most likely."

"Fine, but I will shoot you in the ass if you do it while I'm here"

"Whats the matter Shelly? Don't what to see your boyfriend get killed?"

"Maybe"

"What?" The other three of us said together staring at her, me with a big smile the other two with very confused looks on their face. "Umm, I mean, we should go!" She ran off down the hall without even grabbing her rifle. We raced after her and I tossed her the rifle just before we reached another turn in the hall.

After what felt like, and most likely was, hours of running and shooting, the four of us were very much sick of it. We had finally reached the docking station after having fought through five more Batarians, these ones shielded with armor, and were just about to run straight to the ship when we realized that it was no longer there. Panic set in as I looked around for some possible reason why the ship had left without us on it and when I couldn't find anything the panic grew exponentially. Shelly grabbed my hand tight and pulled me close, "John...where is the ship?" She asked in a confused tone, the others were staring at me for a response. "I don't know, this was the gate we came out of yes?"

"Aye." Joey replied, I took note that he was no longer dropping the F-bomb like it was his sole purpose in life. "Let me see if I can't get in touch with the captain and find out what the hell is going on." They nodded and walked over to a bench to take a seat, except for Shelly, she stayed with me squeezing my hand in hers. I pulled up my omni tool interface in my helmet and began to call the captain, the response was immediate but completely unexpected. "Who the hell is this?" The voice asked, clearly not that of the captains. "Recruit John Watcher, where is the captain?"

"Ah, the android. Your captain, I suspect, is face down in a pool of his own blood like the rest of your sorry excuse for a crew. Please feel free to stay put, we wouldn't want our guards to have trouble finding you now would we?" He killed the feed with a forced evil laugh which he had clearly been working on for some time, he was quite good at it. Regardless, we had to find a way off this station and when I told my squad what the laughing man had said they looked grim. "Then whats the point? Even you can only do so much John, they will hunt us down and kill us." Mark nodded showing he clearly had given up as well. Shelly frowned and began to look around frantically, "This station specializes in making ships and researching new ones right?" She asked with a hopeful expression on her face, "yes." I replied, after a minute of silence I realized where she was going with her question. "If we find their main docking hub we can probably find a fresh ship that can get us out of here, Mark you can fly a ship can't you?" She asked, Mark stared at the floor and began to cry. "What the point? They killed my brother and they are gonna kill us too!" He went on like this for a good five minutes before I picked him up off the bench and began to shake him furiously back and forth to get him to stop crying. "Pull yourself together man, would your brother want you to be sitting here and sniveling like a little bitch? Or would he want you to find out who did this and ICE the fucker?"

"T...T..The second one." He managed between sobs "And what about the rest of you?" I asked looking at Shelly and Joey, "I go where you go John." Shelly said with a smile, "It's not like the Batarians are gonna give a counter proposal that ends with my life in tact, count me in." Joey added, and with that we headed down the corridor looking for a craft small enough to slip away but big enough for us to fit. Shelly mentioned something about not minding if there were only three beds on board and gave me a big smile when she said it making it very clear that she was hitting on me.

It took a few hours, but we managed to find a small craft that would suit our purpose. We almost missed it between our constant running and shooting at oncoming troops, but Mark caught a glimpse of it and got us out of there as quickly as he could. The Batarians did not give up so easily though, we had to fly through multiple asteroid fields just to break their pursuit and only rested when we reached a Mass Effect Relay and jumped out of the area. "What do you mean you don't know where we are?" I heard Joey yelling at Mark from the front of the ship. "We were being chased! I put in the furthest coordinates I could and stuck with it."

"He made a good call Joey, they won't look for us out here." I said trying to save Mark from the stream of fucks that Joey was no doubt going to give him anyways. I departed the bridge and looked around the ship, there were four decks. The Captains quarters where in the back of the bridge where I slept, below us was the crew quarters and galley, next was the cargo bay which had one UT-47 drop shuttle ready to go, and last was of course the engine room where Joey spent most of his time. It would be hard to fly this ship with only four crew members, but we would manage until we made it back to the Citadel.

I met up with Shelly in the crew quarters, she was looking out the window but turned and smiled when she saw me out of my suit. "So that's what you really look like." She said walking up to me and hugging me, "Maybe," I said. "For all you know I am just a stow away here to take the ship back to the station."

"I highly doubt that," she replied. "Stowaways aren't this cute." She got onto her toes and kissed my cheek, "You were amazing today." She pressed her head into my chest pulling me closer to her, "Not so bad yourself, we all did really well for our first fight I think. Considering that none of us are dead and all." We stood there for while, in each others arms. I would have liked nothing more than to stay this way with her, but Joey came down from the bridge and began acting as his bitchy self. "Well looky here! I knew you two were lovers, there was no need to hide that from the rest o' us you know?" He walked away laughing after killing what was an amazing moment, I began to plan his death making sure to make it as gruesome and painful as possible. "That guy is a right proper ass hole, its like he wants us to know that he is one. Sometimes I think he is just putting on an act when he does it, and he probably is." Said Shelly as she walked back to her bed and sat down. "So, where too now boss?"

"Don't call me that Shelly, I hate leading."

"Would you rather Joey lead us?"

"You have a good point there."

"I always do."

"Well to answer your question, we need to get back to the Citadel and talk to the Galactic Council about what happened."

"Galactic Council? Don't you mean the Citadel Council?"

"I've always called it that."

"That's adorable, but completely incorrect."

"I wouldn't say completely, they are the council that presides over the galaxy."

"Nope, still completely wrong."

"Regardless, that's where we are going. Someone there should be able to give us some answers."

"I hope your right."

"Me too."

"We most likely will be sent out to figure out why you know."

"What makes you say that? They will probably send a much more skilled ship and crew to solve this, we will probably be reassigned to something much simpler."

"Maybe, the council has a way of sending those who report a problem to fix it themselves if they consider them capable. And we did just fight an entire space station alone and survive, I would say we are more than capable. A new ship would be nice though, this one is a little cramped."

"It's not that bad, you can still move freely through it without a problem."

"I like you John."

"I like you too, you're a good friend Shelly."

"No dummy," she got off the bed and walked up to me. "I mean, I like you." She kissed me, not on the cheek this time, a full on tongue in my mouth kind of kiss. Before I knew it she was pulling me onto her bed and hitting the control to close the door, and at the same time undoing my belt.

After action report: Crew level up.

John gains points in _Combat Mastery_

Shelly gains points in _Throw _ability

Joey gains points in _Fitness_

Mark gains points in _Combat Drone _ability


End file.
